Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach. There is no doubt that Dee Forbes was not the only person who knew about these events. We can see that from the Grant Thornton report. We know that the commercial director is the person who operated the barter account and negotiated the secret deal with Renault that allowed RTÉ to reimburse Renault and cover all the costs of the Renault events organised with Ryan Tubridy. We know she was the person who authorised for the invoice to be raised by Ryan Tubridy's agent, and we also know she was the person who organised the making of the payment through the barter account. We would not have known any of this from the RTÉ statement. We have to read the grant Thornton report to get it. There are numerous other executives on the board who also had knowledge of this secret deal. This is the problem because at the core of this is the insider culture at the top. It involves the highest-paid people in RTÉ and secret, shady deals and elaborate mechanisms to keep them out of the public eye and away from public scrutiny. The people at the top are looked after and ordinary others workers have to suffer through pay cuts or pay freezes. It is not acceptable.

RTÉ had a chance to disclose all the information but has not done so. The Taoiseach has asked it to fast-track the Grant Thornton report. RTÉ knows where the €120,000 payment in 2017 to 2019 arose from. It discovered it. Does the Taoiseach agree that it should put the information on the record today and not have us wait for days or weeks? The information should be available today.

If RTÉ is not transparent at the committee meetings over the course of today and tomorrow, will the Taoiseach use his power to appoint somebody to go into RTÉ to make the information available to the public?

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